At the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, grieving families used the memorial stage to call on President Trump to finally hold Saudi Arabia accountable, and to name the past presidents seated in front of them who they say failed to do so.
Terry Strada stood at the National 9/11 Memorial in lower Manhattan and delivered an indictment that spared no administration. Her husband Tom died in the attacks. She has spent a quarter century pressing Washington for answers about Saudi Arabia's alleged role in helping the hijackers. On the anniversary, with Vice President JD Vance, former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton all present, she made the families' case in blunt terms.
Fox News Digital reported that Strada addressed the dignitaries directly from the stage:
"Administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families. They withheld evidence. They vetoed JASTA. They broke promises, both public and private. It has been one betrayal after another."
She then turned her appeal to the current White House. "President Trump can still change that," she said, urging the president to tell Saudi leaders "that if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this, all of the pain, all of the destruction that we have all been suffering through."
The law at the center of the families' fight is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, known as JASTA. Congress passed it to let 9/11 families sue Saudi Arabia over its alleged role in the attacks. President Obama vetoed the bill in 2016. Congress overrode that veto, one of the rare bipartisan rebukes of the Obama years, and the lawsuit moved forward.
But the families say the veto was only the most visible in a long line of obstacles. Dennis McGinley, whose older brother Danny worked on the 89th floor of the South Tower and died in the attacks, told Fox News Digital that every administration has stood in the way.
"Administration after administration has not done anything for us. In fact, they've blocked, blocked us every step of the way of getting justice."
McGinley described his last moments of contact with his brother. He was working across the Hudson River when he saw the first plane hit. Danny called to say it was a passenger jet, described seeing people jumping from the neighboring tower, and said he had been told to remain in place. Dennis McGinley never spoke to him again.
That kind of loss, specific, permanent, and still raw after 25 years, is what drives the families' frustration with Washington's pace. McGinley put it plainly:
"It is like the wound never healed, and every year we get salt poured back into that wound."
The legal landscape shifted last year. In August 2025, U.S. District Judge George Daniels allowed the families' claims against Saudi Arabia to proceed, finding they had presented enough evidence to move toward trial. The ruling did not determine that Saudi Arabia was responsible for the attacks, but it marked a significant step in a case that had dragged through the courts for years.
The families' claims center on figures the 9/11 Commission itself documented. Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national, helped hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar obtain an apartment in San Diego. Fahad al-Thumairy, an accredited Saudi diplomat who served as imam at the King Fahd Mosque in California, had numerous contacts with al-Bayoumi. The commission documented those connections but did not conclude that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials supported the plot.
Newly released investigative material, including FBI records and British intelligence material, has intensified scrutiny of those Saudi connections. The families argue this evidence fills gaps the commission left open. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied involvement.
The broader pattern of political realignment around accountability issues has played out in other races as well. In Michigan, more than 400 Jewish Democrats crossed party lines to back a Republican candidate, reflecting a willingness among traditional Democratic voters to break ranks when they feel their concerns have been ignored.
White House spokesperson Olivia Wales told Fox News Digital that Trump has already acted on transparency:
"President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in history, which is why he authorized the declassification and release of hundreds of pages of documents related to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The President will always pay tribute to the American heroes we lost in the tragic September 11 attacks, their beautiful family members, and to the acts of heroism that defined that fateful day when the unbreakable spirit of the American people prevailed."
Trump himself acknowledged the lingering questions in 2022, saying, "Nobody has gotten to the bottom of 9/11." That same year, he hosted a Saudi-backed LIV Golf tournament at his New Jersey club, drawing protests from 9/11 families. He has not publicly said whether he supports releasing additional files concerning Saudi Arabia's alleged ties to the hijackers.
McGinley framed the moment as a unique opening. He told Fox News Digital that Trump has "a unique, historic opportunity here to be a hero, be our champion, finally close the books on this American nightmare, which is now becoming an American embarrassment. It's got to start."
An unidentified speaker addressed Vance directly from the memorial stage: "Please carry that message back. Stand with the families. Stand with the survivors."
That direct appeal to a sitting vice president, at Ground Zero, in front of former presidents the families blame for inaction, carried a weight that no lobbying campaign can replicate. The political dynamics around Trump's movement continue to shift traditional alliances, as seen in MAGA Inc.'s recent $10 million investment in the Texas Senate race.
The ceremony carried a second flashpoint. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attended the remembrance service despite a petition and public outcry demanding he stay at city hall. Mourners called his presence "disrespectful." The source of the petition and the specific actions that prompted it were not detailed, but the reaction at Ground Zero was clear: families who lost loved ones did not want him there.
Passananti, a 9/11 family member affiliated with the group 9/11 Justice, has attended the ceremony every year but one since the attacks. His father, Horace Robert Passananti, worked on the 100th floor of the North Tower. Passananti was 32 when he called his father after hearing a plane had struck the building. He never heard from him again.
He told Fox News Digital the families' fight has felt surreal:
"It feels really like a twilight zone and unbelievable that we have to fight for justice for the worst terrorist attack that ever happened on our soil. It doesn't feel real. It's unexplainable."
Passananti said the families have been left to pursue evidence on their own. "We've really been on our own, the families, trying to obtain evidence," he said. "We've gotten really no help from our government. We feel like they've put Saudi Arabia ahead of the 9/11 families, and we're hoping that will change."
Jen Nilsen, whose husband died in the attacks, stood at the memorial and spoke about why she returns each year. "This is where he is," she said simply.
She told Fox News Digital that 25 years have not dulled the grief. "It doesn't change at the 25th year. The pain is still there."
Her message to younger generations was direct:
"Never forget. Even though years go on, you never forget. You never get over it. The hurt is always there. The pain is always here."
The ceremony drew a bipartisan roster of dignitaries, Vice President Vance, former Presidents Bush, Obama, Biden, and Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, Dr. Jill Biden, Laura Bush, Michael Bloomberg, New York first gentleman William Hochul Jr., and New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill. The guest list itself underscored the families' point: every one of those officials held power during the 25 years the families say they were stonewalled.
The 9/11 Commission found no evidence that another Saudi national, Osama Bassnan, gave money to the hijackers. But the commission's own documentation of the al-Bayoumi and al-Thumairy connections, combined with newly released investigative material, has kept the question alive. The families believe the full, unredacted record will tell a story Washington has spent two decades trying not to read.
Twenty-five years, four administrations, one overridden veto, and hundreds of declassified pages later, the families of the dead are still asking the same question they started with: who helped the hijackers, and why won't Washington say so plainly?